SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17 – Toronto, ON. – imagineNATIVE and the Harold Greenberg Fund (HGF) announce the inaugural Indigenous Story Editing Mentorship. Launching at the Festival’s annual Industry Series (also supported by HGF) on DATE, this initiative aims to increase Indigenous expertise in feature film script development from all creative contributing points, by providing one selected applicant a nine-month mentorship (January to September 2015) with established HGF Script Readers.
Starting in January 2016, the selected mentee will meet with HGF staff in a series of meetings to learn the behind-the-scenes processes of story development at the national funding organization that supports the development of Canadian dramatic feature films.
The mentee will be paired over two “reading cycles” with two different script reader mentors: HGF’s Alan Bacchus, Manager, and imagineNATIVE’s Executive Director Jason Ryle, a script reader for the Harold Greenberg Fund. Via one-on-one meetings, the scripts assigned to the HGF readers for the cycle will also be given to the mentee, who will learn first hand approaches to evaluating scripts, making notes and reports. The mentee will learn from the processes of both mentors, and get feedback on their own script evaluations.
A confidentiality contract will be signed between HGF and the mentee.
The newly skilled mentee will be invited to participate on the review board at imagineNATIVE’s annual Film Script Lab in 2016, where submitted dramatic film scripts are given an intensive with a select group of Indigenous participant artists.
John Galway, President of The Harold Greenberg Fund says, “We are extremely excited to take this new step in bringing Indigenous perspectives to the story editing process with this new professional development training opportunity, strengthening the development process for Canada’s rising screenwriting voices.”
Jason Ryle, imagineNATIVE’s Executive Director adds, “As the creation of Indigenous dramatic films increases in Canada, experienced story editors from within our indigenous communities can only strengthen these scripts. Our enhanced partnership with the Harold Greenberg Fund is an exciting evolution, in creating a larger community of skilled Indigenous personnel at all points in the script development process.”
This is a voluntary learning opportunity for any Indigenous Canadian writer or artist looking to engage with experts in the art, practice and business of story editing.
In the call for applications, applicant must fill out an applications form, submit a Letter of Intent (speaking to interest in story editing, experience in media art and writing/editing), and provide a short writing sample, preferably a critique or review of a feature film of their choosing, speaking to its story elements.
Applications will be released by November 1, 2015.
The deadline for applications is Tuesday, December 1, 2015. The selected recipient will be notified by December 16th.
ABOUT THE HAROLD GREENBERG FUND
The Harold Greenberg Fund/Le Fonds Harold Greenberg is a national funding organization that supports the development of Canadian dramatic feature films. Since 1986, we have invested almost $84 million in the Canadian film and television industry.